Oconee Crappie: Prespawn Slabs

Joe Partenza with some great examples of what crappie anglers can expect to catch on Lake Oconee before crappie swim to the banks to spawn. The 19 crappie that he and the author caught on Jan. 6 hit Thermocline Lil’ Fry jigs.

 Winter can be a tough time to fish with cold temperatures, strong winds and rainy conditions rolling around every few days. You must catch the weather “just right,” says Joe Partenza, an expert crappie angler and a seasoned crappie tournament competitor, who just won one of the most prestigious and highest cash award crappie tournaments in the USA. He and his partner, Eric Cagle, won the cash prize of $60,000 at the Mr. Crappie Classic tournament that was held on Table Rock Lake, near Branson, Missouri, on Nov. 2-3, 2024.

Joe Partenza is the proud owner of Crappie Ninja Guide Service based in  central Georgia, where he regularly guides on Oconee, Sinclair and Jackson. With years of guiding experience under his belt, Joe has made a name for himself in the fishing community, earning a feature in GON in October 2021 on Lake Jackson. His dedication to the sport and expertise in crappie fishing have made him a sought-after guide for fishing enthusiasts looking to enjoy the thrill of angling in Georgia’s waters.

In addition to his guiding services, Joe has demonstrated his competitive spirit on the tournament circuit. He achieved a top-10 finish at the American Crappie Trail General Tire Qualifier on the Alabama River and made waves at the ACT National Championship at Lake D’Arbonne, where he landed a 3.08-lb. crappie, earning the Big Fish Award. His accolades also include being the 2021 BigFishHeads Oconee Derby Champion with a 2-lb., 5.7-oz. crappie. Joe’s passion for fishing and commitment to excellence continue to drive his success in both guiding and competitive fishing. He also has several wins under his belt with the Peach State Crappie Club. When Joe’s not fishing, he is the store manager for Ingles Grocery in Gray.

Now, let’s catch some crappie on Lake Oconee. We studied the weather maps and forecasts, and the consensus was that we were in for a winter storm with snow and sleet to hit Georgia on Jan. 7. Strangely, the forecast was for fairly calm winds on Jan. 6, before the storm, but it was going to be very cold with a high of only 46. That’s a doable fishing day if the wind is down and you dress warmly and fish in the middle of the day. Joe doesn’t like to fish in the wind on a cold day, as the boat and the fishing lines can get very difficult to manage. With the water being cold, Joe says the crappie will feed throughout the day, thus it’s not important to try to be on the lake at the crack of dawn or near sundown.

We agreed to meet at Sugar Creek Marina at 12:30 p.m. We loaded our gear into Joe’s 20-foot Skeeter with a 200 horsepower Yamaha motor. We had plenty of boating power to go anywhere, but Joe likes to fish Sugar and Lick creeks, so we did not have to go far.

Joe says in February the crappie will be staging around the main river and creek channels in deep water. That’s no secret, but finding crappie and enticing them to actually bite when the water is 46 degrees and they are not really hungry can be challenging. Joe is a master at using the best electronics in the fishing world to locate and catch crappie, and he demonstrated his skill while I was sitting in the partner seat in the front of the boat—the best seat to experience the action on the Garmin LVS 32 LiveScope graph. If you recently purchased some new fishing electronics, Joe can reduce your learning curve by teaching you how to locate and catch crappie. In addition to the Garmin LiveScope graph, Joe uses a Humminbird SOLIX 12 to show the main-lake structure and the position of his boat.

Joe and John launched out of Sugar Creek Marina, which is well stocked with fishing supplies, baits and hot food, like fried chicken and potato wedges.

We found abundant fish scattered around the bottom where Sugar Creek meets the Oconee River channel, but it was mostly shad with an occasional larger blimp that was a striper or hybrid. Joe said that he was looking for one to four blimps, and they’d usually be crappie, while the larger groups of fish were probably stripers or hybrids, based on his experience, and our results that day proved him right.

Joe’s forward-facing sonar was set up perfectly to align the transducer so it pointed straight out from the trolling motor, so there was no doubt which direction the fish were located. Also, the forward sonar shows exactly how far the fish are out from the boat. So, it’s a fairly simple method of casting out the jig the right distance, watching it sink on the graph, then cranking the lure by the crappie’s head so it can get a good look at it. Joe says it’s very important to keep the jig just above the crappie’s head, as they will almost never dive for a jig. Since their eyes are on the tops of their heads, their vision to see objects below them is very limited.

Watching the jig approach a fish, which is hopefully a crappie, is pretty exciting. Joe calls these schools of fish “wolf packs.” Often you could watch fish move toward the jig on the screen and see one suck it in. However, more times than not, the fish would ignore the lure or just follow it a short distance and then just drift away. However, the method worked well enough that we put a good number of fish in the boat. Our day of using LiveScope was successful, but we still had to find the fish and work for them to bite.

This photo shows a crappie suspended in a treetop with a jig just above the fish. The Garmin LiveScope lets anglers drop lures right on top of fish.

We fished around the trees near the mouth of Sugar Creek. Joe says crappie that are near the tops of the trees are more likely to bite and are easier to get into the boat when they are hooked.  We caught 19 crappie, with several nice small stripers that stretched our lines. Most of our crappie were over a pound, with several at 1 3/4 pounds and one at 2 pounds. Surprisingly, later in the afternoon, we spotted several crappie suspended 5 feet deep in 30 feet of water that hit our jigs.

Not everyone has FFS. If you’re in that category, you can troll Hal-Flys, Jiffy Jigs or your favorite jigs in the deep-water areas of the main lake before the spawning mood strikes them, says Joe. To up the odds, some anglers like to add minnows to their jigs. However, Joe does not use minnows or any liquid attractants to his jigs, finding them unnecessary.

Before the spawn, Joe will also catch crappie by shooting docks with jigs, particularly docks in deeper water. In areas with docks where there is not much submerged structure under the water, especially before or after spawning, are great places to locate crappie, says Joe.

He says that he likes Sugar and Lick creeks and has learned their structure pretty well over the years, but he suggests that anglers pinpoint an area of the lake to crappie fish and concentrate their efforts in a small area, rather than running long distances to fish. He says Oconee has great fishing all over its 19,000 acres, and it has the potential to turn up some bragging-size crappie.

Joe Partenza (left) and his partner Eric Cagle (right) won the Mr. Crappie Classic in Branson, Missouri on Nov. 3, 2024. The Georgia anglers won $60,000! Wally Marshal (center) was the tournament director.

According to GON’s Lake & River Records program, the heaviest black crappie to ever come from Lake Oconee was caught in 1997 and weighed 3-lbs., 12-ozs. Lenny Sams, owner of Trails End Taxidermy in Macon, says that a lot more people are crappie fishing today, and really big crappie are harder to put in the livewell. He says that 25 years ago, 3- to 4-lb. crappie were caught occasionally, but they are rare today due to fishing pressure.

Joe likes to use Thermocline Lures, and his No. 1 crappie lure is the small Lil’ Fry plastic jig that’s only 1.75 inches and fits neatly on a 1/8- or 1/16-oz. plain jig head. We used the 1/16-oz. jig for the shallower fish, and if the fish were deeper, we pulled out a rig loaded with the 1/8-oz. jig. Joe likes the pearl-ice color, which is close to the natural color of small shad that is designed to replicate a shad’s natural movement. Joe says its realistic profile and slender tail provide lifelike action that crappie can’t resist. He uses Todd Huckabee rods in the 6-6 size, and you can find these at the Sugar Creek Marina store. Joe helped to design these rods, and it’s called the Ninja model. He loads his light spinning reels with 6-lb. K9 fluorocarbon line.

According to the WRD Fisheries webpage, the average Oconee crappie sampled in the spring and fall of 2023 was 10.2 inches. Crappie should weigh around 1/2 to 3/4 pounds this spring, with good numbers of fish up to 1 1/2 pounds. WRD recommends fishing from February to May and from October to December for larger numbers and larger fish.

Joe says in early February, concentrate toward the mouths of the creeks near the main lake and gradually move toward shallow water as temperatures rise in spring. In the spring, target standing timber and man-made brushpiles in Sugar Creek and the upper ends of the lake, as well as the upper ends of other major creek arms, such as Richland, Sandy, Beaverdam and Lick creeks. When water temperatures reach the low 60s, target bedding crappie around shallow shoreline cover.  Joe says when the dogwoods trees are starting to bud out, you should be crappie fishing.

Joe is  now a fishing pro for Humminbird electronics and will be searching for crappie with a Humminbird Mega Live 2 front-facing transducer, which he says is amazing! He highly recommends Sugar Creek Marina for all your fishing needs, plus they have great food, including fried chicken and potato wedges. Sugar Creek Marina is located at 353 Parks Mill Road, Buckhead, GA.

Contact Joe at 706.819.3515, email him at [email protected], or on Facebook.com/joe.partenza. He’ll put you on the crappie!

Expect to catch some linesides while targeting crappie in February.